Part 22 (1/2)

She rolled her eyes at that, leaned back, and smoked for a bit without saying a word.

The sun drifted behind some greasy white clouds, and Siobhan said, ”You're looking for a reason, yeah? Start with the man who raped her.”

”Excuse me?”

”She was raped, Mr. Kenzie. Six weeks before she died.”

”She told you this?”

Siobhan nodded.

”She give you a name?”

She shook her head. ”She said only that she'd been promised he wouldn't bother her, and then he did.”

”Cody f.u.c.king Falk,” I whispered.

”Who's that?”

”A ghost,” I said. ”He just doesn't know it yet.”

10.

Cody Falk rose at six-thirty the next morning and stood on his back porch with a bath towel around his waist and sipped his morning coffee. Once again, he seemed to be posing for envisioned admirers, his strong chin tilted up slightly, coffee cup held st.u.r.dily aloft, his eyes slightly dewy through my binoculars. He looked out at his backyard as if surveying his fiefdom. In his head, I was pretty sure, a voice-over for a Calvin Klein commercial played.

He raised a fist to stifle a yawn, as if the commercial had begun to bore him, and then he sauntered back inside, closed the sliding gla.s.s doors behind him, and threw the lock.

I left my spot and drove around the block. I parked two houses down from Cody's and walked up to his front door. Three hours ago, I'd found his backup keys tucked away in a magnetic Hide-a-Key caddy attached to the underside of his drainpipe, and I used them to let myself in.

The house smelled of those potpourri leaves people buy at Crate & Barrel, and it looked like Cody had ordered the rest of the house from the same catalogue. It was rustic, Santa Fe mission chic right down the line. A cherry-wood dining set sat just off to my left. The seat-cus.h.i.+on prints were faux Native American and matched the rug underneath. An oak chest and hutch with Aztec moldings served as Cody's liquor cabinet, and it was fully stocked, most of the bottles only a third full. The walls had been painted dark gold. It looked like the kind of room an interior decorator would try to sell you on. Step out of Boston and into Austin, Cody, you'll feel so much better about yourself.

I heard the shower turn on upstairs, and I left the dining room.

In the kitchen, four high-backed bar stools surrounded a butcher-block table in the center of the floor. The blond oak cabinets were half full, mostly goblets and martini gla.s.ses, a few canned vegetables, some Middle Eastern rice mixes. Judging by the stack of takeout menus to gourmet supermarkets and restaurants, I determined Cody didn't cook in much. The sink held two plates, rinsed clean of food, a coffee cup, three gla.s.ses.

I opened the fridge. Four bottles of Tremont Ale, a carton of half-and-half, and a container of pork fried rice. No condiments. No milk or baking soda or produce. No sense that there'd ever been anything in there but the beer, the half-and-half, and last night's Chinese.

I went back through the dining room and entrance foyer and I could smell the leather in the living room before I entered. Again, a southwestern motif-dark oak chairs with hard straight backs supporting cranberry leather. A coffee table on stubby legs. Everything smelled well-oiled and new. A stack of magazines and glossy circulars on the coffee table seemed typical of the owner-GQ, Men's Health, Details, for Christ's sake, and catalogues to Brookstone, Sharper Image, Pottery Barn. The hardwood floors gleamed.

You could photograph the lower half of the house and put it in a magazine. Everything matched, yet nothing gave any discernible clues to the owner himself. The gleaming hardwood floors only accentuated the warm, dark coldness of the place. These were rooms meant to be looked at, not enjoyed.

Upstairs, the shower shut off.

I left the living room and climbed the stairs quickly, tugging gloves over my hands as I went. At the top, I removed the lead sap from my back pocket, listened outside the bathroom door as Cody Falk exited the shower stall and began to dry himself. The plan, such as it was, was simple: Karen Nichols had been raped; Cody Falk was a rapist; make sure Cody Falk never raped again.

I lowered myself to one knee and looked through the peephole into the bathroom. Cody was bent at the waist, drying his ankles, the top of his head pointed directly at the door. He was roughly three feet away.

When I kicked the door in, it hit Cody Falk in the head and he stumbled back and then fell on his a.s.s. He looked up at me, and I hit him with the sap about a quarter of a second before I realized the man on the floor wasn't Cody Falk.